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The CON-LAB voters’ split on which news outlets are most trusted – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,218
edited June 2023 in General
imageThe CON-LAB voters’ split on which news outlets are most trusted – politicalbetting.com

I have been very struck by this from YouGov on how backers of the Tories and LAB trust or distrust different news outlets.

Read the full story here

«1345

Comments

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,888
    Ist?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437
    We are heading for America where each side has its own facts from its own media.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656
    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Very good articles about wanking, mind.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Very good articles about wanking, mind.
    You require guidance?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    GB’s +7 among right wing voters is notable.

    I’d have them pretty much bottom, they pretty much only exist to promulgate bollocks.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,671
    I'm disappointed but not surprised to see ITV more universally trusted than the BBC which has damaged its own reputation so badly.

    ITV and the FT now the media of record? Times change.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656

    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Very good articles about wanking, mind.
    You require guidance?
    It's a reference to this piece, from the late great @SeanT:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/self-abuse/
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    rcs1000 said:

    If you look at the programme of Opposition Platform - For Life it is NOT about joining Russia or ceceding from Ukraine. It does however favour Donbass autonomy. Where is the evidence for a substantial minority let alone a majority of people in any part of Ukraine wanting to be part of Russia?

    Pre invasion polling - https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html

    That's fascinating polling: in 2022, before the invasion, just 9% of Ukrainians thought Russia and Ukraine should be one country.

    And even in the far east of the country, the number is just 18%.

    The figures are very similar to those in the 1991 Independence referendum.
    Yes, interesting isn’t it.

    Equally interesting is how it was received when I previously posted it. One of the “realist” posters referred to it as that “shitty poll”. Almost as if they didn’t like what it said.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959

    We are heading for America where each side has its own facts from its own media.

    Channel 4 News is the exception to that.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679
    The FT hits the sweet spot then. Trusted by both sides.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656

    rcs1000 said:

    If you look at the programme of Opposition Platform - For Life it is NOT about joining Russia or ceceding from Ukraine. It does however favour Donbass autonomy. Where is the evidence for a substantial minority let alone a majority of people in any part of Ukraine wanting to be part of Russia?

    Pre invasion polling - https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html

    That's fascinating polling: in 2022, before the invasion, just 9% of Ukrainians thought Russia and Ukraine should be one country.

    And even in the far east of the country, the number is just 18%.

    The figures are very similar to those in the 1991 Independence referendum.
    Yes, interesting isn’t it.

    Equally interesting is how it was received when I previously posted it. One of the “realist” posters referred to it as that “shitty poll”. Almost as if they didn’t like what it said.
    It's funny how the "realist" posters never seem to have any concerns about minorities inside Russia.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,714
    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Wow. The Spectator is not much more trusted amongst Tory voters than the Guardian. I've thought for a while that the infiltration of the Living Marxism crowd into its pages is less appealing to its traditional readership than Fraser Nelson seems to think.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Wow. The Spectator is not much more trusted amongst Tory voters than the Guardian. I've thought for a while that the infiltration of the Living Marxism crowd into its pages is less appealing to its traditional readership than Fraser Nelson seems to think.
    The Spectator is not a newspaper. No one gets "news" from it.

    They get curious opinion pieces and strange opera reviews.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    Long and lurid thread on the American healthcare racket. Literally a racket involving industrial production of fake medicines, false accounting, murder, endemic fraud and widespread killing of patients.

    https://twitter.com/moetkacik/status/1661462749606739971

    US healthcare is the one comparison which makes the NHS look brilliant.
    US healthcare is in the UK lobby system, showing politicians the lolly and explaining they can help the crumbling and expensive UK socialised healthcare out, help bring it into the 21st century. The NHS will be replaced by the US system at some point for sure.
    Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.
    This Chomskyite trope about "running down" services as a prelude to privatisation makes no sense.
    It makes perfect sense if you believe privatisation, rather than good delivery, is the goal.
    Only if you are susceptible to tenuous conspiracy theories dreamt up by loony academics.

    The opposite would make much more sense as a conspiracy: flooding the NHS with public investment before selling it off on the cheap.
    It's not a tenuous conspiracy theory to believe that some politicians are driven more by ideological purity and less by practical considerations or effective outcomes. You know they exist in all walks of politics.

    Proving the case is rather more difficult, but the theory is much more coherent than you give credit for.
    The theory depends on the idea that someone who wants to privatise the NHS needs to "manufacture consent" so they deliverately set about making the service as bad as possible, regardless of its effect on their electability. It's on a par with Chomsky's more recent thoughts on Ukraine.

    The only practical effect of the theory is to make people think irrationally about government spending decisions.
    But objectively speaking, sometimes certain things get a lot worse without it stopping the ruling party being elected. The response of the electorate is only a part of the calculation, if people do indeed calculate along these lines.

    Likelier, it's not a matter of calculating electoral effects at all, but having an ideology and aiming at it, and worrying less about collateral damage such as the service users who need it to be working today. You know that people like this exist, and you know that there are those for whom the public or private status of this or that takes on a near-religious tenor.

    The question of whether this is something that's actually happening is one question. But the idea that it could be happening is utterly sensible. To believe that it's too ridiculous to contemplate would be to have a view that politicians are somehow supremely above all this game playing nonsense and would never dream of anything other that sober honest dealings with the public. Let me gently suggest that such an analysis might find itself fragile when exposed to reality.
    You are parroting a specific theory that has its origins with Noam Chomsky, who said: "That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

    Of course its credible that there are senior people who think the NHS isn't the best model and should be replaced with a privatised system, but the idea that anyone who thinks this would go about it by "running it down" in order to make people angry that it doesn't work doesn't make sense politically or financially. It's simply a conspiracy theory.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679
    CH4 News a big winner too. Has the biggest single trust number albeit specifically from Labour voters. This accords with my feelings. CH4 News is woven into the very fabric of life at our house. Every day I settle down with some nuts and a drink and watch the whole show, properly concentrating. It's the most important hour of the day.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679
    Farooq said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Very good articles about wanking, mind.
    Well I'm not about to splash out on a copy..
    Although that would be preferable to reading it.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,888
    Interesting. Issues. Is this Con/Lab voters in the past (2019) or future intention? These groups are very different. Only quite hard core Tories so identify at the moment.

    Secondly, it appears that Tories are on the whole less trusting of media on average than Labour voters.

    Three, some of these sources (eg Reuters, excellent and trustworthy) are ones which very very few non anorak punters will ever use except indirectly.

    Four, does anyone on the planet seriously use GBNews?

    Five, the Tory score for C4News, which sometimes competes with the Pyongyang Daily Argus is remarkable.

    Six, the outstanding Al Jazeera is missing.

  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,085
    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,085
    By the way, I think news outlets rise and fall. The Guardian was in a weird state a few years ago but has had some really good articles lately.

    Conversely, the Telegraph was really good up until c. 4 years ago and is now laughable.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,136
    kinabalu said:

    The FT hits the sweet spot then. Trusted by both sides.

    Probably because they don't read it, or if they do it's not for politics, just for stock tips.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,724

    GB’s +7 among right wing voters is notable.

    I’d have them pretty much bottom, they pretty much only exist to promulgate bollocks.

    Further evidence that Conservative voters are increasingly infested with boomer brain rot.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,903
    Fascinating how little trust Tory voters have in news reporting in general. Perhaps this reflects reality's well-documented liberal bias. It's quite sad actually, it must be awful to feel so at odds with the world, and perhaps a little bewildering when your side is supposed to be in charge of things.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,903
    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    I think the Telegraph is rated remarkably highly compared to the other right wing press, which are really not much worse than the Telegraph.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 2,366
    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,085

    Fascinating how little trust Tory voters have in news reporting in general. Perhaps this reflects reality's well-documented liberal bias. It's quite sad actually, it must be awful to feel so at odds with the world, and perhaps a little bewildering when your side is supposed to be in charge of things.

    Yes, I think the reactionary right, or should that be The Reactionary Right, are increasingly out of kilter with the world.

    Their disaffection, bordering on bewilderment, would be almost worthy of sympathy were it not for the fact that they're so plain nasty.

    Last time I saw this? 1992-7 but this is far worse. Another reason why Labour / LibDems will wipe the floor with them at the GE.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,903
    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Wow. The Spectator is not much more trusted amongst Tory voters than the Guardian. I've thought for a while that the infiltration of the Living Marxism crowd into its pages is less appealing to its traditional readership than Fraser Nelson seems to think.
    The Spectator is not a newspaper. No one gets "news" from it.

    They get curious opinion pieces and strange opera reviews.
    There's that travel writer chap they have.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    The gaps are actually reassuringly low compared with what we’d see in the US. The question is direction of travel.

    US influence on the UK is a constantly mixed blessing, but polarised media must be one of its most dangerous exports.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,085
    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    Long and lurid thread on the American healthcare racket. Literally a racket involving industrial production of fake medicines, false accounting, murder, endemic fraud and widespread killing of patients.

    https://twitter.com/moetkacik/status/1661462749606739971

    US healthcare is the one comparison which makes the NHS look brilliant.
    US healthcare is in the UK lobby system, showing politicians the lolly and explaining they can help the crumbling and expensive UK socialised healthcare out, help bring it into the 21st century. The NHS will be replaced by the US system at some point for sure.
    Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.
    This Chomskyite trope about "running down" services as a prelude to privatisation makes no sense.
    It makes perfect sense if you believe privatisation, rather than good delivery, is the goal.
    Only if you are susceptible to tenuous conspiracy theories dreamt up by loony academics.

    The opposite would make much more sense as a conspiracy: flooding the NHS with public investment before selling it off on the cheap.
    It's not a tenuous conspiracy theory to believe that some politicians are driven more by ideological purity and less by practical considerations or effective outcomes. You know they exist in all walks of politics.

    Proving the case is rather more difficult, but the theory is much more coherent than you give credit for.
    The theory depends on the idea that someone who wants to privatise the NHS needs to "manufacture consent" so they deliverately set about making the service as bad as possible, regardless of its effect on their electability. It's on a par with Chomsky's more recent thoughts on Ukraine.

    The only practical effect of the theory is to make people think irrationally about government spending decisions.
    But objectively speaking, sometimes certain things get a lot worse without it stopping the ruling party being elected. The response of the electorate is only a part of the calculation, if people do indeed calculate along these lines.

    Likelier, it's not a matter of calculating electoral effects at all, but having an ideology and aiming at it, and worrying less about collateral damage such as the service users who need it to be working today. You know that people like this exist, and you know that there are those for whom the public or private status of this or that takes on a near-religious tenor.

    The question of whether this is something that's actually happening is one question. But the idea that it could be happening is utterly sensible. To believe that it's too ridiculous to contemplate would be to have a view that politicians are somehow supremely above all this game playing nonsense and would never dream of anything other that sober honest dealings with the public. Let me gently suggest that such an analysis might find itself fragile when exposed to reality.
    You are parroting a specific theory that has its origins with Noam Chomsky, who said: "That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

    Of course its credible that there are senior people who think the NHS isn't the best model and should be replaced with a privatised system, but the idea that anyone who thinks this would go about it by "running it down" in order to make people angry that it doesn't work doesn't make sense politically or financially. It's simply a conspiracy theory.
    No, it doesn't make sense politically or financially. But it does make sense ideologically.
    That's the point. Sometimes people put ideology ahead of finances and politics.

    And I'm not parroting the theory. I'm just not in favour of dismissing it as illogical or prima facie false. You seem to think it's inconceivable that people would act in this way. I say it's not remotely inconceivable. That's not the same as me saying "yes, this is happening".
    You started out by suggesting corrupt rather than ideological motives: “Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.”

    If you’re now reducing the strength of your claim to “some people believe in low tax and public spending as a matter of principle”, then you’re not really saying much.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,724

    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    I think the Telegraph is rated remarkably highly compared to the other right wing press, which are really not much worse than the Telegraph.
    There's been nothing worth reading in the Telegraph since Bill Deedes died.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Wow. The Spectator is not much more trusted amongst Tory voters than the Guardian. I've thought for a while that the infiltration of the Living Marxism crowd into its pages is less appealing to its traditional readership than Fraser Nelson seems to think.
    Might just be the legacy of the Johnson editorship; does anyone trust him ?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,903
    Tres said:

    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    I think the Telegraph is rated remarkably highly compared to the other right wing press, which are really not much worse than the Telegraph.
    There's been nothing worth reading in the Telegraph since Bill Deedes died.
    My grandparents read the Telegraph. I'm not sure what they really liked about it other than its general worldview. My grandma liked the crossword, I think.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Heathener said:

    Fascinating how little trust Tory voters have in news reporting in general. Perhaps this reflects reality's well-documented liberal bias. It's quite sad actually, it must be awful to feel so at odds with the world, and perhaps a little bewildering when your side is supposed to be in charge of things.

    Yes, I think the reactionary right, or should that be The Reactionary Right, are increasingly out of kilter with the world.

    Their disaffection, bordering on bewilderment, would be almost worthy of sympathy were it not for the fact that they're so plain nasty.

    Last time I saw this? 1992-7 but this is far worse. Another reason why Labour / LibDems will wipe the floor with them at the GE.
    Bear in mind this is Labour voters and conservative voters, not people identifying as right or left of centre. In current polls there are very few conservatives so you’re talking about the 30-35% most right wing section of public opinion. I think that skews the results a bit.

    I love the US surveys that show by far the most trusted news outlet is The Weather Channel. And it is indeed one of the US’s greatest media creations.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    Tres said:

    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    I think the Telegraph is rated remarkably highly compared to the other right wing press, which are really not much worse than the Telegraph.
    There's been nothing worth reading in the Telegraph since Bill Deedes died.
    It’s astonishing to recall it was once a serious newspaper and an intelligent read.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    Heathener said:

    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
    Telegraph collapsed long before that.
    Early - Mid 2000s, as noted upthread.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    If you look at the programme of Opposition Platform - For Life it is NOT about joining Russia or ceceding from Ukraine. It does however favour Donbass autonomy. Where is the evidence for a substantial minority let alone a majority of people in any part of Ukraine wanting to be part of Russia?

    Pre invasion polling - https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html

    That's fascinating polling: in 2022, before the invasion, just 9% of Ukrainians thought Russia and Ukraine should be one country.

    And even in the far east of the country, the number is just 18%.

    The figures are very similar to those in the 1991 Independence referendum.
    Yes, interesting isn’t it.

    Equally interesting is how it was received when I previously posted it. One of the “realist” posters referred to it as that “shitty poll”. Almost as if they didn’t like what it said.
    It's funny how the "realist" posters never seem to have any concerns about minorities inside Russia.
    I do - hence my concern about the location of the Ukrainian/Republic of China border.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,437

    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    I think the Telegraph is rated remarkably highly compared to the other right wing press, which are really not much worse than the Telegraph.
    There has been a change in tone over the last few months, the Telegraph has moved from respectable right-wing newspaper to batshit insane (not sure why: same editor and owner).
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,318
    Nigelb said:

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Wow. The Spectator is not much more trusted amongst Tory voters than the Guardian. I've thought for a while that the infiltration of the Living Marxism crowd into its pages is less appealing to its traditional readership than Fraser Nelson seems to think.
    Might just be the legacy of the Johnson editorship; does anyone trust him ?
    Johnson’s editorship was commercially very successful.
    However the quality notably declined. I actually liked it in the Frank Johnson era. It was delightfully counter-cultural amid increasing Blair hysteria.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    Long and lurid thread on the American healthcare racket. Literally a racket involving industrial production of fake medicines, false accounting, murder, endemic fraud and widespread killing of patients.

    https://twitter.com/moetkacik/status/1661462749606739971

    US healthcare is the one comparison which makes the NHS look brilliant.
    US healthcare is in the UK lobby system, showing politicians the lolly and explaining they can help the crumbling and expensive UK socialised healthcare out, help bring it into the 21st century. The NHS will be replaced by the US system at some point for sure.
    Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.
    This Chomskyite trope about "running down" services as a prelude to privatisation makes no sense.
    It makes perfect sense if you believe privatisation, rather than good delivery, is the goal.
    Only if you are susceptible to tenuous conspiracy theories dreamt up by loony academics.

    The opposite would make much more sense as a conspiracy: flooding the NHS with public investment before selling it off on the cheap.
    It's not a tenuous conspiracy theory to believe that some politicians are driven more by ideological purity and less by practical considerations or effective outcomes. You know they exist in all walks of politics.

    Proving the case is rather more difficult, but the theory is much more coherent than you give credit for.
    The theory depends on the idea that someone who wants to privatise the NHS needs to "manufacture consent" so they deliverately set about making the service as bad as possible, regardless of its effect on their electability. It's on a par with Chomsky's more recent thoughts on Ukraine.

    The only practical effect of the theory is to make people think irrationally about government spending decisions.
    But objectively speaking, sometimes certain things get a lot worse without it stopping the ruling party being elected. The response of the electorate is only a part of the calculation, if people do indeed calculate along these lines.

    Likelier, it's not a matter of calculating electoral effects at all, but having an ideology and aiming at it, and worrying less about collateral damage such as the service users who need it to be working today. You know that people like this exist, and you know that there are those for whom the public or private status of this or that takes on a near-religious tenor.

    The question of whether this is something that's actually happening is one question. But the idea that it could be happening is utterly sensible. To believe that it's too ridiculous to contemplate would be to have a view that politicians are somehow supremely above all this game playing nonsense and would never dream of anything other that sober honest dealings with the public. Let me gently suggest that such an analysis might find itself fragile when exposed to reality.
    You are parroting a specific theory that has its origins with Noam Chomsky, who said: "That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

    Of course its credible that there are senior people who think the NHS isn't the best model and should be replaced with a privatised system, but the idea that anyone who thinks this would go about it by "running it down" in order to make people angry that it doesn't work doesn't make sense politically or financially. It's simply a conspiracy theory.
    No, it doesn't make sense politically or financially. But it does make sense ideologically.
    That's the point. Sometimes people put ideology ahead of finances and politics.

    And I'm not parroting the theory. I'm just not in favour of dismissing it as illogical or prima facie false. You seem to think it's inconceivable that people would act in this way. I say it's not remotely inconceivable. That's not the same as me saying "yes, this is happening".
    You started out by suggesting corrupt rather than ideological motives: “Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.”

    If you’re now reducing the strength of your claim to “some people believe in low tax and public spending as a matter of principle”, then you’re not really saying much.
    Sorry, but you have me confused with another poster
    Sorry I lost track of the thread, but that’s the sentiment you were endorsing. It’s a very common trope about how privatisation supposedly works.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 2,366
    Heathener said:

    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
    The decline in the Guardian is the same. It used to be a fairly rational social democratic paper, but became increadingly far left on social issues. To the point where it would avoid, vet or play down major stories that went against that view. E.g. doctoring quotes where criminals had their race described, accusing those reporting on the child grooming scandal as racist, adopting all the language of trans activists over actual science.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656
    Nigelb said:

    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Wow. The Spectator is not much more trusted amongst Tory voters than the Guardian. I've thought for a while that the infiltration of the Living Marxism crowd into its pages is less appealing to its traditional readership than Fraser Nelson seems to think.
    Might just be the legacy of the Johnson editorship; does anyone trust him ?
    @HYUFD ?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    If you look at the programme of Opposition Platform - For Life it is NOT about joining Russia or ceceding from Ukraine. It does however favour Donbass autonomy. Where is the evidence for a substantial minority let alone a majority of people in any part of Ukraine wanting to be part of Russia?

    Pre invasion polling - https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html

    That's fascinating polling: in 2022, before the invasion, just 9% of Ukrainians thought Russia and Ukraine should be one country.

    And even in the far east of the country, the number is just 18%.

    The figures are very similar to those in the 1991 Independence referendum.
    Yes, interesting isn’t it.

    Equally interesting is how it was received when I previously posted it. One of the “realist” posters referred to it as that “shitty poll”. Almost as if they didn’t like what it said.
    It's funny how the "realist" posters never seem to have any concerns about minorities inside Russia.
    I do - hence my concern about the location of the Ukrainian/Republic of China border.
    Republic of China?

    Those Taiwanese have more balls than I thought.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,223
    I’m surprised Tories are so positive about Sky News.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 2,366
    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    They should separate BBC World Service from the BBC. It is up there with the FT in quality and doesn't suffer from the BBC's centre-left bias.

    Funnily enough the domestic BBC's most neutral period was during the EU referendum where they were legally obliged to stay neutral and watched things closely.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,352

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    Long and lurid thread on the American healthcare racket. Literally a racket involving industrial production of fake medicines, false accounting, murder, endemic fraud and widespread killing of patients.

    https://twitter.com/moetkacik/status/1661462749606739971

    US healthcare is the one comparison which makes the NHS look brilliant.
    US healthcare is in the UK lobby system, showing politicians the lolly and explaining they can help the crumbling and expensive UK socialised healthcare out, help bring it into the 21st century. The NHS will be replaced by the US system at some point for sure.
    Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.
    This Chomskyite trope about "running down" services as a prelude to privatisation makes no sense.
    It makes perfect sense if you believe privatisation, rather than good delivery, is the goal.
    Only if you are susceptible to tenuous conspiracy theories dreamt up by loony academics.

    The opposite would make much more sense as a conspiracy: flooding the NHS with public investment before selling it off on the cheap.
    It's not a tenuous conspiracy theory to believe that some politicians are driven more by ideological purity and less by practical considerations or effective outcomes. You know they exist in all walks of politics.

    Proving the case is rather more difficult, but the theory is much more coherent than you give credit for.
    The theory depends on the idea that someone who wants to privatise the NHS needs to "manufacture consent" so they deliverately set about making the service as bad as possible, regardless of its effect on their electability. It's on a par with Chomsky's more recent thoughts on Ukraine.

    The only practical effect of the theory is to make people think irrationally about government spending decisions.
    But objectively speaking, sometimes certain things get a lot worse without it stopping the ruling party being elected. The response of the electorate is only a part of the calculation, if people do indeed calculate along these lines.

    Likelier, it's not a matter of calculating electoral effects at all, but having an ideology and aiming at it, and worrying less about collateral damage such as the service users who need it to be working today. You know that people like this exist, and you know that there are those for whom the public or private status of this or that takes on a near-religious tenor.

    The question of whether this is something that's actually happening is one question. But the idea that it could be happening is utterly sensible. To believe that it's too ridiculous to contemplate would be to have a view that politicians are somehow supremely above all this game playing nonsense and would never dream of anything other that sober honest dealings with the public. Let me gently suggest that such an analysis might find itself fragile when exposed to reality.
    You are parroting a specific theory that has its origins with Noam Chomsky, who said: "That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

    Of course its credible that there are senior people who think the NHS isn't the best model and should be replaced with a privatised system, but the idea that anyone who thinks this would go about it by "running it down" in order to make people angry that it doesn't work doesn't make sense politically or financially. It's simply a conspiracy theory.
    Indeed, it is total nonsense. The NHS is a bureaucracy, that most bizarrely, a lot of British people think is some kind of deity. No-one needs to "run it down" because it's own inefficiencies do that very well. It is a system that was designed and predicated on the nationalised industry model of the 1950s, which most people with a brain have realised fundamentally do not work. Nationalised industries put their own employees and bureaucrats first and customers are a low priority. The NHS is no different. Eventually most people will wake up to this, but it may take another fifty tears.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    tlg86 said:

    I’m surprised Tories are so positive about Sky News.

    Still think it is owned by Rupert Murdoch?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Fucking hell Dortmund.

    You are about to heavily shit over my betting position.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,223

    Fucking hell Dortmund.

    You are about to heavily shit over my betting position.

    Ha ha ha.

    They were always going to fuck it up today.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,352
    Farooq said:

    WillG said:

    Heathener said:

    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
    The decline in the Guardian is the same. It used to be a fairly rational social democratic paper, but became increadingly far left on social issues. To the point where it would avoid, vet or play down major stories that went against that view. E.g. doctoring quotes where criminals had their race described, accusing those reporting on the child grooming scandal as racist, adopting all the language of trans activists over actual science.
    What do you mean in the highlighted bit? I'm assuming you mean referring to people who identify as trans by their preferred pronouns, but I'm not sure.
    I am moderately right of centre, but I find the Guardian quite reliable and mostly trustworthy
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    If you look at the programme of Opposition Platform - For Life it is NOT about joining Russia or ceceding from Ukraine. It does however favour Donbass autonomy. Where is the evidence for a substantial minority let alone a majority of people in any part of Ukraine wanting to be part of Russia?

    Pre invasion polling - https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukraine-crisis-poll-intl/index.html

    That's fascinating polling: in 2022, before the invasion, just 9% of Ukrainians thought Russia and Ukraine should be one country.

    And even in the far east of the country, the number is just 18%.

    The figures are very similar to those in the 1991 Independence referendum.
    Yes, interesting isn’t it.

    Equally interesting is how it was received when I previously posted it. One of the “realist” posters referred to it as that “shitty poll”. Almost as if they didn’t like what it said.
    It's funny how the "realist" posters never seem to have any concerns about minorities inside Russia.
    I do - hence my concern about the location of the Ukrainian/Republic of China border.
    Republic of China?

    Those Taiwanese have more balls than I thought.
    Ha!

    My Ukrainian irredentism is also more expansive than anyone else on the planet.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 2,366
    Farooq said:

    WillG said:

    Heathener said:

    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
    The decline in the Guardian is the same. It used to be a fairly rational social democratic paper, but became increadingly far left on social issues. To the point where it would avoid, vet or play down major stories that went against that view. E.g. doctoring quotes where criminals had their race described, accusing those reporting on the child grooming scandal as racist, adopting all the language of trans activists over actual science.
    What do you mean in the highlighted bit? I'm assuming you mean referring to people who identify as trans by their preferred pronouns, but I'm not sure.
    I am talking about things like "gender assigned at birth". Doctors don't assign gender. They record sex.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    FF43 said:

    Long and lurid thread on the American healthcare racket. Literally a racket involving industrial production of fake medicines, false accounting, murder, endemic fraud and widespread killing of patients.

    https://twitter.com/moetkacik/status/1661462749606739971

    US healthcare is the one comparison which makes the NHS look brilliant.
    US healthcare is in the UK lobby system, showing politicians the lolly and explaining they can help the crumbling and expensive UK socialised healthcare out, help bring it into the 21st century. The NHS will be replaced by the US system at some point for sure.
    Running down, the unsustainable in its present form, NHS makes perfect sense if you have friends of influence in US life science and big pharma organisations.
    This Chomskyite trope about "running down" services as a prelude to privatisation makes no sense.
    It makes perfect sense if you believe privatisation, rather than good delivery, is the goal.
    Only if you are susceptible to tenuous conspiracy theories dreamt up by loony academics.

    The opposite would make much more sense as a conspiracy: flooding the NHS with public investment before selling it off on the cheap.
    It's not a tenuous conspiracy theory to believe that some politicians are driven more by ideological purity and less by practical considerations or effective outcomes. You know they exist in all walks of politics.

    Proving the case is rather more difficult, but the theory is much more coherent than you give credit for.
    The theory depends on the idea that someone who wants to privatise the NHS needs to "manufacture consent" so they deliverately set about making the service as bad as possible, regardless of its effect on their electability. It's on a par with Chomsky's more recent thoughts on Ukraine.

    The only practical effect of the theory is to make people think irrationally about government spending decisions.
    But objectively speaking, sometimes certain things get a lot worse without it stopping the ruling party being elected. The response of the electorate is only a part of the calculation, if people do indeed calculate along these lines.

    Likelier, it's not a matter of calculating electoral effects at all, but having an ideology and aiming at it, and worrying less about collateral damage such as the service users who need it to be working today. You know that people like this exist, and you know that there are those for whom the public or private status of this or that takes on a near-religious tenor.

    The question of whether this is something that's actually happening is one question. But the idea that it could be happening is utterly sensible. To believe that it's too ridiculous to contemplate would be to have a view that politicians are somehow supremely above all this game playing nonsense and would never dream of anything other that sober honest dealings with the public. Let me gently suggest that such an analysis might find itself fragile when exposed to reality.
    You are parroting a specific theory that has its origins with Noam Chomsky, who said: "That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."

    Of course its credible that there are senior people who think the NHS isn't the best model and should be replaced with a privatised system, but the idea that anyone who thinks this would go about it by "running it down" in order to make people angry that it doesn't work doesn't make sense politically or financially. It's simply a conspiracy theory.
    Indeed, it is total nonsense. The NHS is a bureaucracy, that most bizarrely, a lot of British people think is some kind of deity. No-one needs to "run it down" because it's own inefficiencies do that very well. It is a system that was designed and predicated on the nationalised industry model of the 1950s, which most people with a brain have realised fundamentally do not work. Nationalised industries put their own employees and bureaucrats first and customers are a low priority. The NHS is no different. Eventually most people will wake up to this, but it may take another fifty tears.
    It’s not a matter of ownership, but of structure.

    For example, the management practices of the 1950s create the industrial relations of the 1950s.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    tlg86 said:

    Fucking hell Dortmund.

    You are about to heavily shit over my betting position.

    Ha ha ha.

    They were always going to fuck it up today.
    I will be off to the poorhouse at this rate.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679
    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    The FT hits the sweet spot then. Trusted by both sides.

    Probably because they don't read it, or if they do it's not for politics, just for stock tips.
    Yes it's seen as apolitical and isn't read by your average joe.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    DavidL said:

    Presumably PB is not cited because it would embarrass all the others. If there is a fast moving story I always come here because the number of links and observations you get here from places I might not have found myself are unmatchable.

    Not sure what they mean by "trust" though. The old template of here are the facts and here is what we think about them died a long time ago. Everyone spins and you just have to be alert to that. Sometimes even people on here spin too, extraordinary though that may seem.

    Populus/Yonder do regularly ask about PB, and occasionally I do get asked about the trustworthiness of it.

    Yes I am aware of the conflict of interest.



  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,069

    tlg86 said:

    Fucking hell Dortmund.

    You are about to heavily shit over my betting position.

    Ha ha ha.

    They were always going to fuck it up today.
    I will be off to the poorhouse at this rate.
    One of the Red Bulls is out of qualifying, but it's not the one you wanted I'm affraid :wink:
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    edited May 2023
    It does say a lot about the Bundesliga that the last man to coach a team other than Bayern to the Bundesliga title was Jürgen Klopp and and he hasn't managed in Germany for eight years.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    But Opinium are the best pollsters in the world, because this question was absolutely not inspired by me.


  • felixfelix Posts: 15,175
    edited May 2023
    MY little enclave of SE Spain rocked this week by allegations and arrests for vote buying, principally by 2 list members of PSOE - the socialists. We have locals throughout the country tomorrow. In my area the conservatives should do well having taken the Andalucian Community in a landslide victory last year . The socialists were ousted after years of uninterrupted rule, with the old leader finally imprisoned for corruption. A useful reminder that grubby politics comes in all political shades .
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    CatMan said:

    tlg86 said:

    Fucking hell Dortmund.

    You are about to heavily shit over my betting position.

    Ha ha ha.

    They were always going to fuck it up today.
    I will be off to the poorhouse at this rate.
    One of the Red Bulls is out of qualifying, but it's not the one you wanted I'm affraid :wink:
    Never mind.

    He will forever be known as a tainted champion, that's all I need.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679
    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    The Guardian is left biased as the Telegraph is right biased but on quality there is a chasm between them these days. The Telegraph is quite shoddy.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,325
    DavidL said:

    Presumably PB is not cited because it would embarrass all the others. If there is a fast moving story I always come here because the number of links and observations you get here from places I might not have found myself are unmatchable.

    Not sure what they mean by "trust" though. The old template of here are the facts and here is what we think about them died a long time ago. Everyone spins and you just have to be alert to that. Sometimes even people on here spin too, extraordinary though that may seem.

    On a whim I listened to Times Radio this morning for an hour and was briefly transported back to the glory days of the Today programme with Brian Redhead and Libby Purves: two witty, well-informed presenters doing long-form interviews in comprehensible English with experts, giving them enough time to explain a complicated issue without interrupting or tricking them into mis-speaking. It made me realise, sadly, what a dog's breakfast R4 has become.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656
    Farooq said:

    WillG said:

    Farooq said:

    WillG said:

    Heathener said:

    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
    The decline in the Guardian is the same. It used to be a fairly rational social democratic paper, but became increadingly far left on social issues. To the point where it would avoid, vet or play down major stories that went against that view. E.g. doctoring quotes where criminals had their race described, accusing those reporting on the child grooming scandal as racist, adopting all the language of trans activists over actual science.
    What do you mean in the highlighted bit? I'm assuming you mean referring to people who identify as trans by their preferred pronouns, but I'm not sure.
    I am talking about things like "gender assigned at birth". Doctors don't assign gender. They record sex.
    Well it's probably useful to find some way of talking about the difference between sex, gender as identified, legal gender, etc.
    Simples:

    (1) do you have dangly bits between your legs?
    (2) what pronoun would you prefer to be addressed as?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302

    But Opinium are the best pollsters in the world, because this question was absolutely not inspired by me.


    They should add subsamples based on pineapple pizza eating to all the voting intention polls.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,246
    Conservative voters are lower trust than Labour voters is the main thing from that survey I think. Not surprising given the diet of conspiracy theories that the former are feeding on.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,983
    So he Sun and Mail are off the scale for untrustworthiness. This shouldn't surprise anyone. We're not the only ones who can spot crap when we see it.....

    In fact it's all reasonably predictable. The BBC would have been way out front a year ago but thanks to cuts and a perceived takeover by BORIS JOHNSON'S Tory Party has put paid to that.

    Boris Johnson really has poisoned everything he's touched. To see ITV more trusted than the BBC is a huge disappointment because for everything it does seen and unseen it's head and shoulders better
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,679

    But Opinium are the best pollsters in the world, because this question was absolutely not inspired by me.

    I'm going to ask since I don't know. What IS your opinion of pineapple on a pizza?

    (fwiw my view is No)
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,246
    FF43 said:

    Conservative voters are lower trust than Labour voters is the main thing from that survey I think. Not surprising given the diet of conspiracy theories that the former are feeding on.

    I actually have a lot of trust in the Star. An unfairly discredited outfit I feel.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,478
    Given the amount of flak that the BBC gets from right and left, I think it comes out of that poll rather well. Especially if one takes account of viewer/reader numbers, which I'd guess are significantly higher for the BBC than for most of the other outlets polled. I suspect many of the judgements are based on reputation rather than actual readership - e.g. the FT.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656
    As an aside, the Trump documents case appears to be gaining teeth.

    I'm beginning to think that a few small bets on other Republicans might be a good idea.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,032

    DavidL said:

    Presumably PB is not cited because it would embarrass all the others. If there is a fast moving story I always come here because the number of links and observations you get here from places I might not have found myself are unmatchable.

    Not sure what they mean by "trust" though. The old template of here are the facts and here is what we think about them died a long time ago. Everyone spins and you just have to be alert to that. Sometimes even people on here spin too, extraordinary though that may seem.

    On a whim I listened to Times Radio this morning for an hour and was briefly transported back to the glory days of the Today programme with Brian Redhead and Libby Purves: two witty, well-informed presenters doing long-form interviews in comprehensible English with experts, giving them enough time to explain a complicated issue without interrupting or tricking them into mis-speaking. It made me realise, sadly, what a dog's breakfast R4 has become.
    I find the desperation to have a Minister to talk over each morning more than faintly tedious but I am still pretty loyal Today listener in the morning on the way to work.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    rcs1000 said:

    As an aside, the Trump documents case appears to be gaining teeth.

    I'm beginning to think that a few small bets on other Republicans might be a good idea.

    It always had teeth - they're just beginning to be bared.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    WillG said:

    Farooq said:

    WillG said:

    Heathener said:

    WillG said:

    The gap between Labour views of the Telegraph and the Guardian is ridoculous when they are basically mirror images.

    They're really not.

    I read both. Journalistically the Telegraph used to be superb but it has plunged in the last two or three years. More or less coinciding with Charlie's Moore's obsession with 'The Blob'.
    The decline in the Guardian is the same. It used to be a fairly rational social democratic paper, but became increadingly far left on social issues. To the point where it would avoid, vet or play down major stories that went against that view. E.g. doctoring quotes where criminals had their race described, accusing those reporting on the child grooming scandal as racist, adopting all the language of trans activists over actual science.
    What do you mean in the highlighted bit? I'm assuming you mean referring to people who identify as trans by their preferred pronouns, but I'm not sure.
    I am talking about things like "gender assigned at birth". Doctors don't assign gender. They record sex.
    Well it's probably useful to find some way of talking about the difference between sex, gender as identified, legal gender, etc.
    Simples:

    (1) do you have dangly bits between your legs?
    (2) what pronoun would you prefer to be addressed as?
    Er, it depends how dangly the dangly bits are. Think about a certain trendy market for cosmetic surgery, and you'll see what I mean ...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    GB’s +7 among right wing voters is notable.

    I’d have them pretty much bottom, they pretty much only exist to promulgate bollocks.

    People like bollocks. In fact, they like it far too much, hence the need to try to set some basic rules to prevent devolution into total bollocks all the time.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As an aside, the Trump documents case appears to be gaining teeth.

    I'm beginning to think that a few small bets on other Republicans might be a good idea.

    It always had teeth - they're just beginning to be bared.
    It initially sounds trivial, but it isn't, and others not meeting all their obligations distracts somewhat but not a lot - simply because Trump's actions appear to be simultaneously inexplicable, but also the barrier to proving them may be much easier.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,711
    Reading this thread is quite hilarious in how it reinforces opinions people already held - fancy that.

    I'll admit to being surprised by the FT, which I actually trust less than the BBC and The Times, and think The Star is unfairly scored - yes, it's trash but it's only there for a laugh.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/may/27/squirrel-haggis-and-japanese-knotweed-reach-uk-menus-as-invasive-species-trend-grows

    Not entirely convinced about this eating Japanese knotweed business - not least because one wonders what happens to the trimmings. Not something for the compost heap.

    And squirrel - what about pest baits?

    But muntjac I have eaten, and will happily do so again ...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    But Opinium are the best pollsters in the world, because this question was absolutely not inspired by me.


    I am very libertarian when it comes to this topic.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    Andy_JS said:

    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.

    Or a quipu based one.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Just read today Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon - definitely a weird, cosmic, philosophical book. Probably not for everyone in its rambling, detached style, but I was quite taken with it.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,711

    Given the amount of flak that the BBC gets from right and left, I think it comes out of that poll rather well. Especially if one takes account of viewer/reader numbers, which I'd guess are significantly higher for the BBC than for most of the other outlets polled. I suspect many of the judgements are based on reputation rather than actual readership - e.g. the FT.

    Yes, quite - most people won't be consuming this news but just 2-3 permutations of it - and probably infrequently at that - and thus making a call on a 1-10 scale for 20+ options in a 10-15 minute response to an opinion poll - so you can only realistically do that based on reputation.

    The only really fair way to do it would be to get 1,000+ demographically weighted people to read/watch them all over, say, a period of 6+ months and then re-run it but, of course, that's never going to happen.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    kle4 said:

    Just read today Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon - definitely a weird, cosmic, philosophical book. Probably not for everyone in its rambling, detached style, but I was quite taken with it.

    Happy memories of reading the Penguin edition as a teenager! Also *Sirius* and *Last and First Men*.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Andy_JS said:

    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.

    I guess you post on PB via a microfiche.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    Nick Palmer please look away now.

    Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
    @CinC_AFU
    The time has come to take back what belongs to us.


    https://twitter.com/cinc_afu/status/1662451731261796353
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,045
    Andy_JS said:

    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.

    lol, as if there are zero flaws with a paper-based system. The biggest one is how inefficient and expensive it is.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    Andy_JS said:

    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.

    Also, they wouldn't have happened if we hadn't invented aeroplanes.
    So much simpler in the old days. Nobody noticed the delays because they were waiting for the wind to veer or back into the correct quarter for the ship to leave harbour.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,983
    WillG said:

    Heathener said:

    The most amusing thing about this is how piss poorly everybody rates The Express, Daily Mail, and The Sun.

    But, yes, the omission of Al Jazeera is a shame. I know people, centrist, who swear by it for international coverage.

    They should separate BBC World Service from the BBC. It is up there with the FT in quality and doesn't suffer from the BBC's centre-left bias.

    Funnily enough the domestic BBC's most neutral period was during the EU referendum where they were legally obliged to stay neutral and watched things closely.
    It was also the only time they were obliged to put out unverified facts which no advertiser would ever be allowed to do. Johnson was allowed to lie to his hearts content. 'Cometh the hour cometh the man'

    Nothing to do with us guv' said the BBC and that was the truth. As far as they were concerned the same rules applied to both sides and that was good enough. But of course the 'other side were the government and their reputation couldn't afford to take the liberties with 'truth' that their opponents could.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.

    lol, as if there are zero flaws with a paper-based system. The biggest one is how inefficient and expensive it is.
    It reminds me of when people argue a written constitution or PR will magically solve problems that are not really related to the codification of our rules or our electoral system in any direct way. They might be good ideas (though personally I think PR is the stronger of the two argued for there), but they are not magic. Likewise here any problems that can and do exist with paper systems are discounted as if they do not exist (and if there are no benefits to system we'd not have shifted in the first place). If the argument is that despite its flaws a paper-based system would be better that's a different, harder argument to make.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,992
    felix said:

    MY little enclave of SE Spain rocked this week by allegations and arrests for vote buying, principally by 2 list members of PSOE - the socialists. We have locals throughout the country tomorrow. In my area the conservatives should do well having taken the Andalucian Community in a landslide victory last year . The socialists were ousted after years of uninterrupted rule, with the old leader finally imprisoned for corruption. A useful reminder that grubby politics comes in all political shades .

    Just back from a very pleasant week's break on a cruise travelling down the coasts of Spain and Portugal. We stopped at both Vigo and A Coruna and there was definitely plenty of election posters with the PP candidate for the leader of the council getting his mug shot on the back of a number of the local buses.

    Last time, PP and PSOE both won 9 seats on the 27 seat A Coruna Council with the local Atlantic Tide losing four seats to 6. The Galician Nationalists won two and Citizens the other seat.

    As this is PP national leader Nunez's home turf, you'd think he'd be expecting PP to take control of A Coruna .

    Nationally, PP are 5-6 points ahead of Sanchez's PSOE and a PP-VOX coalition would have a wafer thin majority in the new Cortes.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,711
    The Spectator isn't quite the same since James Forsyth left, and Fraser Nelson seems overstretched these days, but I'm still a subscriber and it's a much better read than The Telegraph.

    I think the less familiar publications are clustering around the mean here, which is perfectly understandable- if you have a 1-10 scale and you don't know too much about it you'll probably go for "5".
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    Farooq said:

    Hahaha, The Spectator, lagging behind The fucking Metro in terms of trustworthiness.

    Harsh on Metro. You’re not going to get in depth analysis but I don’t perceive any particularly egregious distortion in there.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    TimS said:

    Sean_F said:



    I would be more sympathetic to the 'Russian speakers are a oppressed minority' claims if the Russian state hadn't oppressed non-Russian minorities for centuries.

    That's the same kind of "remember what they did in 1845" stuff that poisoned Ireland for centuries. In any inter-ethnic rivalry there are always examples of oppression and indeed atrocities, and extremists justify oppression by pointing to the last thing the other side did. It's entirely understandable, but bystanders like us should try to avoid buying totally into either narrative and promote a lasting settlement. We should be doing all we can to prevent Ukraine being defeated, without providing unlimited assistance to endorse the "every inch of our soil is sacred and must be reconquered" stuff.
    The Baltic States and Kazakhstan have sizeable Russian minorities. I’d be reluctant to set a precedent that Russia can simply hive off majority-Russian areas in neighbouring countries, in the absence of persecution.
    Russia might also note the rising Chinese population in SE Siberia.
    I’m curious - say Ukraine takes a chunk of Russia. Kicks all the Russians out. Does hat mean that in the interest of “peace” and “facts on the ground” the Russians should give that territory to Ukraine?
    Naturally. That's where misplaced attempts at 'realism' gets you. See also the implicit demand that some states should not have independent choice of action because it'd make life easier for us if they just bent over.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263

    Reading this thread is quite hilarious in how it reinforces opinions people already held - fancy that.

    I'll admit to being surprised by the FT, which I actually trust less than the BBC and The Times, and think The Star is unfairly scored - yes, it's trash but it's only there for a laugh.

    You might well trust the Star, but what would you trust it for ?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    Andy_JS said:

    Today's airport delays wouldn't have happened under a paper-based system.

    I guess you post on PB via a microfiche.
    There are technological innovations he likes and ones he doesn't like.

    I jest, since I think we all know some problems are not technological in nature and yet some silicon valley spod in a hoody and scruffy beard is probably raising a billion dollars for their new start up to try to implement a technological solution to that problem. But drawing a line just before smartphones and e-gates, but after high speed internet and other useful developments, seems somewhat arbitrary.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Nigelb said:

    Reading this thread is quite hilarious in how it reinforces opinions people already held - fancy that.

    I'll admit to being surprised by the FT, which I actually trust less than the BBC and The Times, and think The Star is unfairly scored - yes, it's trash but it's only there for a laugh.

    You might well trust the Star, but what would you trust it for ?
    Punning.
This discussion has been closed.